The Children Are Safe Now
by een nihc
Summary: Shinobi or not, adults are supposed to protect children. Not the other way round. [Minato, Kakashi]


**The Children Are Safe Now**

* * *

She was ordinary, a civilian, an old lady who lived alone by the edge of the forest.

Nobody would look at her twice if they saw her on the street.

Nobody would even look at her twice now if they stumbled upon her body. She was merely one of the many innocent lives that were lost during the war.

A boy, no older than seven years old, stood by the woman's body, unmoving.

His eyes were cold and hard as glass.

Minato recognized the boy at once. His eyes quickly scanned the area. And he was relieved to find that the enemy nins were dead. There was no immediate threat to them.

Slowly, he approached the boy, placed his hand on the boy's shoulder and asked, "Sorry that I'm late, Kakashi. Are you okay?"

When his precious student refused to reply or look him in the eye, Minato grew concerned. He crouched to meet the boy at eye level.

"What happened? Are you hurt?" he asked again.

Kakashi grunted and muttered something that sounded like "_stupid woman_" under his mask.

It puzzled the Yellow Flash as to why the boy would be angry at the dead woman.

"Why did you say that, Kakashi?"

"Because she got in my way!"

This time, the boy was visibly shaking in anger and loathe.

For once, Minato was taken aback and he did not know what to say to his student. It took him a moment before he realized that Kakashi's anger and loathe was directed more to himself than to the poor woman. And he realized with a pang of guilt that if he had arrived earlier to Kakashi's aid, the old woman might've survived. Without another word, Minato hugged his student tightly. His heart constricted in his chest painfully for the life and innocence that was lost.

_If I had been faster, stronger, she wouldn't have died. She shouldn't have shielded me with her body. I would've finished off the enemy anyway._

The unspoken words hung thickly in the air.

Realizing that there was little console that he could offer to the boy or himself, Minato released the hug and stood up. He averted his gaze to the dead woman and truly examined her for the first time since he arrived.

Her face seemed peaceful despite her violent death.

Suddenly, in that instant, Minato understood everything. The old woman died because she followed her instinct to protect a child in the face of danger. Shinobi or not, adults are supposed to protect children. Not the other way round.

"She didn't die in vain," he told his student with bright eyes and a sad smile on his face.

"She died knowing that she protected you," he added quietly.

Kakashi bit his lips hard and fixed his stare on the ground, with tears threatening to spill if he blinked. Nothing seemed to be fair in this world. It was always the innocents who suffered most.

"We shouldn't leave her here. She deserves a proper burial." Minato suggested and Kakashi merely nodded in agreement.

Together, they buried her besides the hut, which used to be her house. It was a nameless grave, marked only by a stone. No one would remember her except them.

As they stood before the grave, Minato swore to himself silently that one day, when he becomes the Hokage, he will changes things. The adults will protect the children. Children will no longer be tools to the village. Children will be children.

* * *

When the nine-tails demon laid waste to Konoha village, the village that the Yellow Flash swore to protect with his life, that old woman's face fleshed before his mind as he stood resolutely against the demon.

Minato glanced back to his crying newborn baby one last time.

He would give up his life for the baby in a heartbeat.

In the next heartbeat, he did what he must.

* * *

Kakashi didn't mourn his sensei's death for long.

He knew that his sensei didn't die in vain.

After all, he died knowing that he saved the whole village. There is no better way to go than that.

END.

* * *

A/N: Kimi no vanilla's "Like A Candle" is a beautiful fic and it inspired me to write this. I borrowed the phrase "Children will be children" from her fic because I can think of no better way of saying it. One thing that I don't like about Naruto series is that children are raised as soldiers in the story. Well, I supposed it's also happening in our real world.

Thanks for reading.


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